It’s been a while since I posted. I kept meaning to write another post for October, but then it kept not happening. So here are some brief updates on various things.
Church. I am going to church now. Specifically the Anglican church about 5 minutes from my home. Why? Well, I’d heard nice things about the Anglicans, namely that they were pretty liberal, and very welcoming, and that the liturgy had all the stuff I really like. So I decided to check it out.
They are very nice, very liberal, and the reverend (deacon? Ok I haven’t figure out how the clergy works, exactly, working on that) was really nice to talk to. I even asked her if it was okay that I was pagan, not Christian, and she shrugged and said “Look, there was no bolt of lightning striking you down, so I think we’re good.”
I’ve been to two Sunday Eucharists so far; I had to miss this past Sunday, unfortunately, as I was caught up with work deadlines. I am going again this coming Sunday.
I am still very religiously involved in my pagan faiths, so this is not a conversion thing for me. I just have discovered that doing things with people and being involved in community is very important to me, spiritually, so I have found a way to do that. I am able to hold space in myself to go to church and worship fully and openly, and then to go home and worship fully and openly in different religious traditions.
~
I’ve been working on a project for a little while now, and it’s almost ready to be released. I’ve created something I’m calling A Polytheist’s Devotional Journal. It’s filled with prompts that are aimed at getting the journaller to dive deeper into devotion and to really examine themselves. The prompts are based off prompts from the Examen, which is a form of prayer in Ignatian spirituality, but have been tailored to a polytheist perspective.
I started this project because I’ve used the Examen myself in order to deepen my thoughts of the gods and more fully explore myself and come to better self-knowledge. I’ve found it very helpful. So I wanted to put together a little book that other polytheists who wanted to try this could get and work through.
I’ve received the proof already and it looks pretty good, so after a few minor adjustments to layout I’ll be publishing it via Createspace. The journal is small and slim; if you did a prompt every day it would last you 2 months. However, you can choose to do prompts weekly, or monthly, or whatever works for you. The pages are dot-grid and they’re pretty good at preventing ghosting/bleed through with many different inks. There are a few “blank” (ie, prompt-less) pages at the beginning and end of the book to doodle on, test out pens, create a neat opening page — whatever you want. The pages are numbered, as well, so that doing an index is easy.
The cover is a photo of a landscape, and in very small print it says “A Polytheist’s Devotional Journal” down at the bottom. I did it this way because Createspace requires I put the title on the front cover, but I wanted it to be unobtrusive so that no one could tell what the book is at just a glance.
Overall I’m pretty satisfied with this project, and am excited to release it to the public. I’m making the price as low as I can make it without losing money so that it’s accessible to people. (Stay tuned to the blog for a post about the official release, as well as a price.)
~
Another project I’ve started is quite a bit bigger, and I’m hoping that it’s a success. I’ve committed to a year and a day, starting on October 31st, to something I’m calling “Honoring the Mothers.”
This project came about from discussions with my mother and my mother in law that lead me to realize that women’s work is magic. The things that are usually classified as “women’s work” (and thus deemed unworthy of men’s hands) are things like cleaning, childrearing, cooking — all mundane activities that hold within them the power of transformation, of changing the world in accordance with will. Women’s work is witchcraft.
Originally, I was just going to write a blog post about this realization, but I realized I wanted to go deeper. I realized I had to go deeper. I wanted to spend a year really learning the secrets of “women’s work” and applying them in my life. I wanted to do this to honor my mother, and my grandmothers, and all the mothers before me who tirelessly did these jobs to keep house and home together; who wove their magic around their families and homes.
I am the result of the magic of thousands.
So how this project is going to work, basically, is I’m going to tackle this idea via cleaning and re-organizing my house. I’ve divided up the year into 4 sections, and the house into 4 sections. Between each fire festival (Samhain to Imbolc, Imbolc to Beltane, Beltane to Loafmass, Loafmass to Samhain) I will work on making that section of the house clean, and organized, as a devotional act for my ancestors and the gods of the home that I worship.
I’ll also be reading as much as I can about topics that are related to this — right now I have The Women in God’s Kitchen out from the library — and, to add cooking to the mix, I’ll be doing a recipe every season that I’ve never done before, that strikes me as particularly magical.
I’m not just doing this as a private project, either. I’m planning on turning my experiences with this into a book. I’ll be writing it throughout the year as I do the project. My hope for it is that it will be part memoir, part practical witchcraft application, and part exploration of what “women’s spirituality” means to someone who is genderqueer, but still feels a pull to that path.
Which brings me to my next announcement.
Patreon!
Yes, I’m starting up a Patreon account for my work here on the blog and any other religious or witchcraft work I do. (I do have a different Patreon account for my Fifty Shades of Drinking video series, but that is on indefinite hiatus as I’ve been having serious computer issues that have prevented me from working on it.)
So, what does this have to do with the book? Well if you pledge $3 a month, you’ll get access to excerpts from the book throughout the year. I won’t be sharing them anywhere else. (For $1 a month you have access to my patron-only feed, which means seeing blog posts on Patreon before I post them here, with the exception of this post.)
If you pledge $5 a month, you’ll get a free copy of the ebook when it’s released, plus access to the first 2 tiers. (You also get one free ebook from my backlist per month at this pledge level, but as this will be my first pagan book I don’t have a backlist at this point.)
So far I’ve only got three rewards listed, but I’ve got plans for more. If you enjoy this blog and my writing, or if you want to see bits of my Honoring the Mothers book before it’s finished, then consider becoming a patron! Your monthly support will help me continue to do this type of work.
That’s all the news for now. I’ll see you again soon with more posts, and an announcement about the journal.
Hope you all had a lovely Samhain, Beltane, and/or Halloween, where ever you are!
I assure you all, I am still alive. I managed to hurt my back some more this past month, and spent a good deal of September recovering. (See my rants about disability at my Twitter.)
While recovering, I was not idle, religiously. In September I wrote three sets of prayers for three pantheons, and then figured out a schedule for them and the Otherfaith daily prayers (written by Aine). These prayers are really daily prayers, not twice weekly ones, but twice weekly is when I say each set (with the exception of the prayers to the Three; they get one day).
Right now the schedule is this: Otherfaith on Monday/Thursday; D’Angeline Gods on Tuesday/Friday, Hellenic gods on Wednesday/Saturday, and the Three on Sunday. This is subject to change, but I want to try to stick to this schedule for a month or more before I start altering it.
I’ve been doing this every day, morning and evening, since the 24th, and a bit more sporadically before that day. Initially I was doing libations as well for both the Hellenic gods and the Otherfaith, but I have come to realize that is too much for me to handle. I end up forgetting about the water on the shrine until the next prayer day for that pantheon comes along, and that’s just not tenable. So for now, these prayers are libation free, though they sometimes involve “lighting” my LED candles and letting them “burn”.
Today is Tuesday, which is a D’Angeline day. The D’Angeline prayers are the ones I’ve felt most motivated to do, because I’ve felt the most response from them: little ideas and epiphanies about how to further shape D’Angeline recon.
For one, I keep the D’Angeline shrine veiled when not in use, and lift the veil up on Tuesdays and Fridays when I say the morning prayer. I don’t know why it feels right to veil it, but it does.
A photo posted by Morag Spinner (@everyday.witch) on
Another thing that’s felt right is that I am half-clothed before the shrine — I go shirtless and bra-less, bare-breasted before Elua and His Companions, but I wear underwear and pants or a skirt. I have come to understand that this shows honor to all the gods of the D’Angeline pantheon — the more modest ones, and the less modest ones. Naamah glories in nakedness; Cassiel does not. By being half-clothed, I am compromising for them.
(On the contrary to this: I can’t do my prayers at the Hellenic shrine until I have showered and dressed fully, and with the other two sets, there seem to be no restrictions/wishes as to my nakedness or not.)
Currently on the shrine there are 8 LED candles, 7 of them arranged on the shrine itself and one in a tall candle holder decorated with stars. At first, I was worried about missing a candle — there are 9 D’Angeline deities, after all. But I got a very clear sense from Elua that He does not need a candle to Himself, because the light of the others’ candles hold His light as well.
Naamah’s candle is the one in the star-imprinted candle-holder. The reason for this is twofold: that candle holder used to be part of my Aphrodite shrine in my old apartment and I have come to believe Naamah and Aphrodite are sometimes syncreticized, and because “Love is the star by which we must set our sights.” (Naamah is the deity of sexuality in the books, but in my headcanon/because of Her syncretization with Aphrodite, She is also a goddess of love as well. But then, all the Companions I see as gods of love in some way, the entire pantheon being based on it.) So far I have not specified the other candles to the rest of the Companions. Eventually I will likely paint something on each LED candle to symbolize the god it is for.
There is also a small container of hyssop, which I bought on a whim a Pagan Pride Day but had no real reason for getting. At some point I realized it needed to go on the D’Angeline shrine. It’s been a while since I’ve read the books, so I’m not sure if it’s canon that hyssop is sacred to the gods (or a specific one), or if it’s even mentioned. It feels familiar in that sense, however, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for it when I do my reread. At any rate, it’s my headcanon that They like it.
And on that note, here are the prayers I’ve written to honor the gods of Terre D’Ange.
Morning Prayer
Naamah, Anael, Eisheth, Shemhazai,
this day I think of you
Cassiel, Camael, Azza, Kushiel,
this day I seek to honor you
Elua and His Blessed Companions,
let love guide me.
Evening Prayer
Naamah, Anael, Eisheth, Shemhazai,
this night I sing your praises
Cassiel, Camael, Azza, Kushiel,
this night I pray to you
Elua and His Blessed Companions,
Your love has led me.
At some point I will likely write more prayers for the D’Angeline gods, more specific ones, or ones for certain times/situations. These, however, are very general so they can be used every day. (I have plans for hymns for the D’Angeline gods as well, ala my endless 30 days of hymns project, but those will have to wait until I complete my reread of the books.)
If you feel called to use these prayers, please do!
First bit of background: I am a descendant of people who survived Nazi Europe.
My Oma, a nurse in a hospital that had to keep 50% each of Axis and Ally soldiers at all times, lest they get bombed by either side. My Opa, a member of the Underground. They were engaged before the war broke out, and spent the entire war engaged, though they didn’t see each other for years. My Opa was captured by the Nazis, and spent most of the war stuck in a Nazi prison.
He suffered an unspeakable hell there.
I say unspeakable because he didn’t speak of it. He couldn’t. But he was different, after coming out of there. He was not the same man my Oma had fallen in love with.
They got married anyway, and had two daughters. The second was unplanned. After the birth of my mom, they emigrated to Canada, wanting to leave war-torn Europe. The change in continents threw off my Oma’s menstrual cycle, and their birth control — rhythm method — stopped working.
When Oma found out she was pregnant again, my 3-year-old mom found her standing on the edge of a well on their property, ready to jump. An offering of a flower from her sweet toddler reminded my Oma that maybe living was worthwhile.
My Opa tried his best to be a good father, but something in him was broken. Broken by the Nazis. He was abusive to my mother and aunt, physically and sexually.
My aunt grew up in the shadow of my mom, golden girl, beloved firstborn. When she was a teenager, she was raped repeatedly by a friend’s brother when she went over for sleepovers. When she became pregnant, they sent her to Europe to have an abortion, lest the family die from the “shame” (not to mention, abortion not being wholly legal in Canada until I was 2 years old).
Aunt Ariel spent her life being jealous of my mom, trying whatever she could for attention from their parents, suffering abuses from her father and later, boyfriends and husbands. In the end, battered by a life of abuse, pain, and illness (she suffered from lupus), she took her own life.
That was the night that my mom decided she was too tired to call her sister, and would call in the morning. That choice has haunted her for years.
My mother, despite being the golden child, did not escape unscathed. Her father’s abuse took its toll on her, leaving her with deep scars. After losing the love of her life to cancer, she went to law school and met my bio-sire.
Any red flags that were there, she didn’t see. In her 30s, she was reaching the point in her life when it was time to think about settling down. She wanted kids, after all, and doing that without marriage was…well, it happened, but not often.
Besides, she wanted a partner — someone who could meet her as an equal, who she could build a family with.
I don’t blame her for being taken in by my bio-sire’s lies. He’s a con artist, like most psychopaths, and is perfectly charming until you get to know him. By then, he’s paved the road for more abuse; gotten you used to the cycle of hurting you, then apologizing and making things right.
My Opa loved him.
If things had been different — if Opa hadn’t suffered in a Nazi prison, would he have abused my mother and aunt the way he did? Would a legacy of suffering be passed down through the generations, to rest heavily on my shoulders?
I carry the suffering of my Opa, my Oma, my mother, my aunt, upon my back. I’m aware of it every day.
And I’m aware that, at its roots, the Nazis were the architects of my family’s suffering. The abuse we suffered at the hands of my bio-sire cannot be removed from what my Opa went through in a Nazi prison, just as it can’t be removed from what my paternal grandmother went through as a Native woman living in the Midwest, mid-century. It is all connected.
So. Please, believe me, that when I say “I hate Nazis” I am not saying it with the cheekiness of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones (though I love that line). I am saying it from the depths of my soul, with the power of all my family’s suffering fueling my rage and hatred.
The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
~
Second bit of background: witchcraft has been, for ages, a tool of the marginalized, the oppressed; the people in our societies with no power. Witchcraft is a tool for reclaiming that power. And sometimes that means using it in ways that hand-wringers deem as “not nice” before fainting and crying.
It’s easy to condemn people for using tools that you “would never” use because you’ve never been forced into a corner where it’s the only option. (Just like it’s easy to condemn people for turning to crime to survive if you’ve never lived in abject poverty; wow look at these parallels.) Sometimes, there aren’t good options. Sometimes hexing IS a good option. It’s not cut and dry. Each situation is going to be different.
~
Recently there was a high profile rape case in the news, and many witches banded together to hex the perpetrator. Personally I didn’t join in, because I was low on spoons at that point, and to be honest I had some questions about how the hex was structured. It wasn’t what I, personally, would choose to do.
That doesn’t mean I condemn the action outright; I just think it could have been gone about better. I have hexed rapists before, after all. And I will never apologize for that.
Well, there was backlash. This was expected.
What I didn’t really expect was a supposed friend going the extra mile of calling any witch who chooses to hex as bad as a Nazi.
(I guess you could say I did “Nazi” that coming.)
Look, you don’t have to agree with hexing. You don’t have to do it. You can think it’s an awful thing to do. No one is making you hex people. It’s a personal choice.
But to compare witches who hex with Nazis is pretty much beyond all fucking pales there are.
It’s taken me 3 months to write this post because, despite my jokes, I am still so angry about this. I commented on my “friend’s” post, telling her it was inappropriate and also thanking her for comparing me to the architects of my family’s suffering because I use hexes. Her reply was that I “shouldn’t take it personally” (I LOVE how people say that after they say something really deeply hurtful on a personal level), equated magic to a gun (which makes me think she shouldn’t be doing any magic at all), and after some back and forth she equated hexing to murdering someone before eventually unfriending me. (Also made some high and mighty comment about how she was concerned about consent so she’d never teach her kids that hexing was ever okay.)
Ok, so, first off — if you equate witches who hex to Nazis you don’t get to say “don’t take it personally” to someone who does hex, because a lot of people alive today have been directly affected by Nazis, whether the original recipe or Neo, and don’t take kindly to being equated with those horrific excuses for humanity.
Two: magic is not a gun. Magic is a tool. If you see all tools as guns, please don’t do anything with any tool ever, because you obviously don’t have the discernment necessary to use tools without killing someone.
Also, saying that hexing someone is like murdering them is…no? If you hex someone to step on Lego pieces barefoot every day for the rest of their life, that is not the same as hexing someone to die. Like, this is not hard to understand. A hex, just like any other magical act, is equal to the physical act it corresponds to.
You know how witches and magic practitioners are often saying “Don’t JUST do a spell to get a job, back it up with sending out resumes and working on your job hunt!”? It’s recommended to do both magical and mundane; the magic is a boost. If you’re not willing to back up something with mundane action, then why should your magic work?
Hexing is a resort when one CAN’T do anything on the mundane plane. This is why it’s traditionally a tool of the oppressed: when your hands are physically tied, use your astral hands to fuck some shit up.
And by the same token, if you WOULD do something on the mundane but can’t because your hands are tied, then that’s the perfect time to do a hex.
Three: Oh for fuck’s sake. Do you ask consent before doing every single thing that might affect someone?
If you’re raped, and you file a police report, did you ask the consent of your rapist to do something that might land him in jail (I mean, unlikely, because the police are fucking awful at handling rape cases, but the point stands)?
If you’re abused, and you go to the authorities, did you ask the consent of your wife before you filed a restraining order? Before you changed your name and ran away? Before you sold the wedding ring that she bought for you so you can escape? No? All these things affect her.
If you need to report a co-worker to your boss because they’ve done something that could endanger customers or fellow workers, or because they’ve done something else so beyond the pale that you absolutely HAVE to tell someone in charge, do you ask that co-worker’s consent? If you do, what if they say no, you can’t tell the boss about their dangerous activity? No, you can’t report them for stealing from the company? Do you respect that boundary? OR do you do what your conscience says you must?
If someone starts a fight with you and you need to defend yourself, do you ask their consent before fighting back?
Consent is important. But consent fetishization is fucked up, and actually muddies the conversations we should be having about consent.
If I’m not going to ask my rapist’s consent before I report him to the police, then I’m sure as hell not going to ask his consent before I hex him. And in a world where reporting rapists to the police is often a completely impossible thing to do, hexing is often one of the only options.
Hexing is not a simple topic. It’s not always something I think is a good response, and personally I’m not keen on the idea of pre-emptive strikes when it comes to it, in most cases. (In some cases, what might be considered a ‘pre-emptive strike’ is really just a response to a pattern of dangerous behaviour that hasn’t coalesced into a specific incident…yet.) I’m also not keen on the idea of hexing people for minor offenses; I think in these cases, mundane tactics should be used first and hexing only seen as a last resort, if it’s used at all.
(I also feel this should be applied to mundane things as well, such as: dear neighbors, please stop calling the cops because I don’t put my insurance sticker on my car on the exact date it turns over. It’s insured; you’re wasting their time; the one time it WASN’T insured was when my leg was broken and it slipped me by. If it’s really a concern to you, you could come and talk to me civilly first. (I am really glad these neighbors are not magic-users, or they’d be hexing me for it.))
That said, other people feel differently about hexing, and while I may not agree with them or their choices, I’m sure as hell not going to call them a Nazi for choosing to do something I wouldn’t do.
There are plenty of Nazis already in Pagandom, and plenty of Nazi-ism in the history of the Pagan movement. We don’t need to try to create more in an effort to Other and ostracize people we don’t agree with.
I am sort of fried today. Didn’t sleep well, despite the CPAP; think I’ll have to lay off the coffee so late at night. I thought music would help me write but it just distracted me, and I’m sitting here trying to get my thoughts on the page and making typos every other word and feeling way too hot even though there’s a fan blowing on me.
I have…six and a half shrines in my office right now. Six and a half, because the half one isn’t actually set up yet, but it’s a designated shrine space for a certain set of gods (Elua and His Blessed Companions). The other six are: the Hellenic gods in general minus Poseidon, because geas, the ancestors, Aphrodite, the Otherfaith, Hekate (doubles as my witchcraft altar), and the Three (Brighid, Morrigan, Manannan). I used to also have a shrine to Hestia in my kitchen, but our lack of space has led me to conclude that that is a thing that will have to be put on hold indefinitely.
Also, I try to keep my shrines contained to my office in an effort to remain somewhat in the closet while still practicing. The office door I can close; the living room and kitchen and dining area are all open.
I’m still slowly working on building up a practice that is regular, and meaningful to me. I need to figure out what “regular” means, first off, because I have realized that daily practice is probably something I cannot do right now. Maybe if I eventually get my health stuff sorted out and start feeling better than 100% crap all the time? But it remains to be seen.
Every 20 days I flametend for Brighid as part of the TC Cill, and we also do Group Flamekeeping on the 8 holidays of the NeoPagan Wheel of the Year. Group Keeping is optional, so I don’t always do it, but it’s a nice way of keeping community with other Brighid-kids all over the world. So far that has been the most regular practice I have been able to do, and I’m finally getting to a point where I actually remember it more often than I forget. (thanks, smart phone!)
Meanwhile, I have accumulated gods and spirits faster than I can implement anything for them. I am still navigating the waters of modern polytheism; of walking between the worlds of spirit and flesh and blood.
It is not enough, for me, to relegate my religious life to standing in front of the shrine and saying prayers and lighting candles; I must bring my religious life out into the daylight, integrate it with the rest of my life, even as I stay in the closet as much as I can. When I keep my religious life tied to my shrines and altars, I forget the things religion is supposed to remind me of, and I do not grow or change as I wish to.
My polytheism is honoring the gods and spirits at their holy days, during their festivals, or when I am called to. It is lighting candles, and praying, and doing witchcraft for justice and a better world — for even when the witchcraft I do is secular in nature, it is implicitly informed by my relationships with the gods and spirits. I do not need to call upon them in a working for that working to be affected by them.
My polytheism is relational, a word I have started using instead of “devotional” because I think its connotations are better for what I want to express. Being polytheist for me means being in a web of relationships with beings embodied and not — my relationship with my husband is not disconnected from my relationships with the gods and spirits, just as my relationships with friends are not disconnected from my relationships with family. The web is large and basically a clusterfrack of strings criss-crossing each other until you have no idea, sometimes, how things connect, and it can be hard to navigate — just like any other web of relationships among any group of people.
My polytheism is in the concrete as much as it is in the abstract; I cannot light candles to Naamah and Aphrodite and sing their praises without also supporting sex worker rights; I cannot hail Hephaestus and the Clarene without championing disability rights. To pray to Brighid and Hekate without doing what I can to help those who are hungry, eat, and those who are cold, get warm, begs the question what the hells am I doing praying to them anyway? To profess to be a follower of the Morrigan, Manannan, Brighid, the Ophelene, Dionysos, and more, and to refuse to work towards a world that is safer for my trans and queer siblings? What nerve that would take.
My polytheism is inherently political, because all things are inherently political. You cannot divorce political leanings from religious ones (and this is not the same thing as church and state, so put that strawman away before I set it on fire), and yes, even staying with a “safe default” is a political choice. You might not see it as one, because the default has been default so long. But default is just as political as alternative options.
How can my polytheism not be political? In a world where disabled people are routinely attacked, harassed, even murdered, in a world where people think eugenics should make a comeback when it comes to disabled or yes, fat people (and hi, I’m both!), how is it apolitical to do the Work of a deity in a wheelchair? Of a deity who is fat? Of a deity with prosthetics, or who is blind, or deaf? In a world where trans and queer people suffer daily, how is it apolitical to do the Work of a genderqueer deity? Of a lesbian one? Of a trans goddess? It isn’t. And it isn’t apolitical to erase these qualities of deities, either, so if you’re doing that, you’re making a very clear statement about what kinds of people you value.
My polytheism includes my animism. There is a hazy Venn diagram, perhaps, that includes “gods”, “spirits”, and other beings, maybe some that I’m not even aware of. How I differentiate between a god and a spirit I don’t even really know; I’ve never been able to put it into words. I think I used to see it as a hierarchy, but now I just see it as a…difference. Gods and spirits are the same but different. Maybe the way I see it is gods are more anthropomorphized, or clearer in focus for human interaction, and spirits are hazier, less defined, less human. I think that’s the closest I can get to explaining it. And I’m probably wrong.
So my polytheism includes the gods and it includes the spirits — the land spirits around me, who I try to keep up good relations with even as I keep my practice secret (which is difficult, if people see you making offerings in your yard). With my spirit companion, who I can only sometimes sense because my ability to know has been so dulled lately that it took a long while for me to realize my house was infested with nasties. And yes, it includes those nasties — even if the relationship I have with them is “Get the fuck out of my house and quit breaking my shit.”
Boundaries often need to be set with people of all sorts, embodied or not. Not everyone is nice.
My polytheism includes my ancestors and it includes the cultures I was raised in — Dutch post-WWII diaspora and BC West Coast. I was not lucky enough to be raised in the culture of my own Native ancestors, but being born in Vancouver, I was raised in a culture that included Coast Salish values and stories. Most Vancouver school children are taught the story of how Raven Stole the Sun and brought light to the people, or know that cedar and arbutus are sacred.
My polytheism includes the Heilig Avdondmaal, the Holy Supper I hold for my ancestors on Sinterklaas Day, where I cook hutspot and applesauce and pork chops and fry bread. I honor my ancestors with food and love and communion, and I remind myself that I am “the result of the love of thousands”.
My polytheism is knitting hats for the homeless, volunteering at the food bank, finding ways to be involved in my community. It is swimming in the river, the ocean; it is walking in the woods; it is a campfire with friends.
My polytheism is going to the beach.
My polytheism is prayer and it is swearing; it is sacred and profane. I am flesh and spirit, so my polytheism will always be both. My polytheism is finding ways to help others. My polytheism is knowing that helping myself is a noble goal, for I cannot fill up another’s cup when mine is empty.
My polytheism does not see money as the root of all evil, and it does not punish me for doing what I must to survive in a capitalist system, even as I do whatever small things I can to change that system, or to grow a new system overtop of it. My polytheism does not hold that I am a bad person for not being radical enough, or for being too radical by others’ standards.
My polytheism sees that I am pure, and holy, and perfect, drenched in sweat and covered in dirt, with a broken spine and ill-working wrists and a fucked up knee. I am pure, and holy, and perfect, with a brain that tells me daily how I am not, with flashbacks and disassociation and self-loathing and downward spirals of complete uselessness. I am pure, and holy, and perfect when I am unable to get out of bed and when I want to die because it’s all too hopeless, and I am too tired, and I do not see a way out.
I am pure, and holy, and perfect, because I am imperfect, because I am broken, because I am dirty.
My polytheism does not reject me for being human. My polytheism is human.
Loafmass is supposed to be on August 2nd, making it parallel with Imbolc. Instead of focusing on any one of the Three, it’s a holiday for all of them.
Loafmass is about berries and bread, and the first harvest, and sucking all we can out of summer before autumn reigns the land. It’s about sun and heat and swimming in the river, or the ocean if you can get to the coast; it’s about camping with friends; it’s about a heat wave that sucks out your will to live. It’s about hot, sticky, summer rain that brings life to the land and complaints to the mouths of your fellow humans.
Loafmass is hiking in the woods with your dog and eating the berries you find on the bushes by the side of the trail. It’s a time for zucchini and blackberries and blueberries and sorbet. The siren song of the ice cream truck wends its way down your street and up again, and if you can get up in the heat to grab your wallet in time, you can make an offering in exchange for a too-small frozen treat that melts too fast.
My experience of Loafmass is directly tied to my experience of August in southwestern British Columbia, so Loafmass for you might be different (though ideally, it’s still in summer, whether that’s August or February for you, and it’s still about bread — hence the name). Different foods will be in season; your climate may not be as hot as our Augusts traditionally are, or it may be hotter. You might be inland; you might not get rains. Maybe you don’t live in a rainforest.
In building this path to honor the Three, I am struck by how individual it is. My understanding of the holidays for Them is rooted in my home climate, so all I can really do is put together a general framework, and if anyone else wants to follow it, they’ll have to add in their own meanings for their own climates.
August in BC is traditionally the hotspot of summer. We generally have a wet June, and July can heat up, but for me, summer happens in August, ending with Labour Day Weekend, the last long weekend of summer and the signal of the start of the school year, and autumn.
This is likely changing, however. This year we’ve had a good ol’ BC summer, with wet June and July, no end of complaints from people with short memories, and a fairly hot August. Last year, though, our province was on fire. We had a hot June, which is unheard of, and no rain. Our water reservoirs got low. We went on water restrictions. Wildfires ravaged the province. And the oligarchy was successful in getting the proletariat to eat each other alive, instead of seeing who the real culprit was.
The people who complained this year about our rain in June apparently don’t remember what last year was like; being unable to breathe; waking up and wondering if the apocalypse was happening because of the color of the sky; wondering when they’d tell you to evacuate your home. Or maybe they just were lucky enough to be far away from the wildfires and the danger they posed. I wasn’t. I stayed in Powell River for a few weeks last July, and for 3 days the sun was blocked out by the smoke and we couldn’t breathe. All my clothing smelled like smoke and fire when I got home.
Wildfires aren’t an abnormal occurrence here, but the amount and the time they happened last year was strange. August is wildfire season, and they’re generally no where near as bad as they were last year. Last year they started in June and raged on all summer. We weren’t off campfire and water restrictions till something like October.
The factors are numerous: climate change is a big one, but also the government’s refusal to put any money into wildfire prevention and maintenance in 2014. The budget for wildfire reduction was 0$, so is it any surprise they were so bad? Nothing had been cleared; no preventative measures had been taken, because the BC Liberals are idiots.
And instead of taking the fight to them last year, they succeeded in getting us to rip each other’s throats out. “Report your neighbors if you see them fling cigarette butts from cars, or watering their lawns in violation of water restrictions!” Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t do something about cigarette butts being flung from cars, because duuuuuuh that’s a bad thing, but focusing on that and reporting neighbors for watering their lawn to the exclusion of all else is exactly what the government wanted, and they got it.
(And don’t even get me started on how the everyday citizen got restrictions on water usage, but giant corporations could do whatever they wanted, and were not seen as culprits in the reduction of our reservoirs. Get out of BC, Nestle.)
So in the coming years, Loafmass might change in form for me. It might be about survival, about clean air, about living through the fire and coming out a different person. It might be about living without rain for 3 months, which in a rainforest is a pretty big deal. It might be less about the green of my home, and more about the dust and smoke and red of my home, as plants shrivel and die.
And it might be about kicking corporations and the BC Liberals the fuck out.
~
Zucchini loaf, strawberries, and mead. (on a very dirty stove)
Tonight I am baking zucchini loaf for Loafmass. I should have celebrated at the beginning of the month, but I have been completely without spoons, without energy. I bought the zucchini back then and miraculously, they survived. The blueberries I got for the ritual? Not so much. I will be using the more recent strawberries instead.
The loaf is baking right now, and it smells pretty good. I hope I grated the zucchini correctly. I cannot remember if you’re supposed to de-seed it first or not; hopefully a seedy loaf will do no harm. (The symbolism works out just fine, anyway.)
Next, I need to clean off the space that is supposed to be my new shrine and altar space to the Three in my office. Currently they occupy a shelf on my bookcase, but it is small, and not appropriate for workings. I would like to switch them to the bigger spot, and use the smaller spot to start putting together a shrine for Elua and His Blessed Companions.
The big space is covered in things I need to organize, as is much of the rest of the house. Depression makes it difficult to get anything done, and I have been stuck in a deep well of it for a while. But tonight I will clear this space, and make it as usable as I can, and I will do my ritual, and I will not feel guilty, because the gods don’t want me to.
I am human, and I am perfect in my imperfections. Being 21 days late with my ritual is not a failure; it is a baby step towards the life I want, a life with regular religious practice, a life with touchpoints of devotion keeping me ever on the path I’ve chosen.
The Three do not punish me for being human. They are infinite, they are endless, and they are patient.
~
The shrine during the ritual. The bread is on the pentacle and in the bowl with the berries; the mead is in the wine glasses. The candles are lit, and the Three walk with me tonight.
I have completed the ritual, and I think it was pretty successful, despite forgetting some key elements at the beginning. However, I think that portion might be a bit redundant for the Loafmass rite in general, so there may be an edit.
Before the ritual I cleaned off the shrine and wiped it down with holy water blessed at Imbolc, then set it up and got ready. Then I washed my hands and face while thinking “I am holy; I am pure” over and over, as a mantra. I did not shower, though I was covered in sweat from cleaning today. I knew it was enough to wash my hands and face; if I am not pure when soaked in salt and sweat and the dirt of cleaning the house; if I am not pure in my rawest form; if I am not pure and holy as I am, then I never will be, and it does not matter.
Ring a bell to signify the beginning of ritual space.
And the roots grew.
And the seeds travelled from a home we’ve forgotten, finding soil in our hearts.
And the roots grew.
From the earth to our souls, one Mother Tree to unite us all.
And when we rise Her branches hold us,
And when we tire Her trunk shelters us,
And when we die Her roots will carry us home.
Praise the trees.
Invoke Land Sea and Sky: sprinkle salt water and ask the Sea not to burst its bounds and welcome Father Ocean to your rite; face the world and ask the Land not to open up and swallow you and welcome the Forest Queen to your rite; light incense and ask that the Sky not fall on you and welcome the Sun Mother to your rite. (This bit was where I forgot things; I didn’t have any salt water or incense. I sprinkled salt instead, and lit a sage bundle. However, for the Loafmass rite in particular I might omit this part. Not sure yet.)
Light 3 candles: “From heart to hearth, I kindle the sacred fires.” (I said this each time I lit a candle.)
“To the Land Spirits, may you draw close and keep this rite grounded: what I have been given, I have prepared and return to you. Accept my offering this night.” Put berries into a bowl.
“To my Ancestors of blood and spirit, may you draw close and give this rite its place in history. What I have been given, I have prepared and return to you. Accept my offering this night.” Place the bread on the altar. (The loaf was pretty crumbly, so I put it on the pentacle candle-holder I have instead of directly on the altar.)
“It is Loafmass, the midpoint of the secular year, the middle of summer, the beginning of the end of the warm days. August will be hot at first, then wane into decided fall as Father Ocean, King of Winter, takes over the year and the Sun becomes a Sleeper, Maiden ageing into the Witch of the Hills, retreating from human space and becoming one with the wilds.
“It is the first harvest, though plants have been picked since May, the beginning of fall. It is a time of birth and life and death, for in the death of plants there is rebirth for next year; in the eating of our crops there is life. Crops sustain life, and thus are sacred.
“It is time to prepare for winter, for fallow times, for times for seeds to sleep and dream of growing in spring. It is a time for winding down, for beginning endings — it is the end of the middle.
“It is a time for bread and berries, for celebration, for sucking all we can out of summer before it’s gone. It is a time for swimming and BBQs and splashing at the water park, and fires on the beach after sunset, hoodies around our chilled shoulders. It is a time to be alive.
“It is Loafmass, and I invoke Brighid, bright power of the sun, birther, midwife, age-changing creatrix. The Smith of the Stars, the one who lights the flames that keep us alive. Mother of poetry and grief. Protector of green lands, keep us ever under your mantle. Beekeeper, shepherd — mistress of milk and honey. Beginning of all things — hail, Brighid! Bright one, fiery arrow! Hail and welcome to this rite!
“It is Loafmass, and I invoke the Morrigan, dark power of the soil, queen of the forest, life itself and the bridge between worlds. Shapeshifter, witch, sorceress, magic using warrior. The Phantom, the breath of life in every spirit; the one who decides when life has had enough. The one who guards the doors. Sovereign of the blooded lands, protector of cattle, the one who gives us the power to reclaim what’s ours — middle of all things, Liminal One. Hail, Morrigan! Dark woods, blood-soaked soil! Hail and welcome to this rite!
“It is Loafmass, and I invoke Manannan, gentle power of the sea, father and uncle to all, shepherd to the dead, guardian to the afterlife. Loving ocean, the Deep One, frozen and cold in the depths of space — within you glitter stars, sparks life. Within your depths the dead sleep, waiting to awake again; within your arms they are kept safe and loved. Briny one, King with Crabs in His hair; lord of the rain and storms and mist; God the Father — the end of all things. Hail, Manannan! Deep one, sparkly depths! Hail and welcome to this rite!
“It is Loafmass, and I honor the Three — Smith, Phantom, Deep One. Birth, Life, Death. Sky, Land, Sea. Rulers of the three realms, connected by the Mother Tree that lives in our hearts. Hail to the Three! May our offerings please you; may we live in your light; may your blessings keep us as our sacrifice keeps you.
“I offer bread and berries and mead to you, Sacred Three! Bread for death, berries for blood, mead for birth.”
Share in the offering with the gods, putting some aside for Them, to be given to the spirits of decay later. Leave things you wish to be blessed on the altar, for the gods to touch them in the night. (In making this rite the parallel of Imbolc, I left a jar of water to be blessed by the gods, as well as my green kerchief.)
Sit and meditate on Loafmass and the gods for a few minutes. Maybe do some writing, or play their playlist. When you feel ready, end the rite.
“My thanks to you, sacred three, for coming to my rite, for your blessings upon my life. My thanks for life, for breath, for love. Though I end this rite now, I know you walk with me always, in my heart and my soul.
“My thanks to my ancestors of blood and spirit, and to the land spirits who have given my rite its context, and kept it grounded. Thank you for your blessings, for keeping the space sacred. Please accept my gratitude, until it is time to gather again.”
Extinguish the candles: “From hearth to heart, I extinguish the sacred fires; may they burn forever within us.” (Again, said 3 times.)
“Father Ocean, Uncle Sea, thank you for keeping your bounds, for keeping us safe; Forest Queen, Blooded Land, thank you for not swallowing me whole, for keeping us hale; Sun Mother, giving sky, thank you for not falling upon us, for giving us warmth and air and life.”
And the roots grew.
And the seeds travelled from a home we’ve forgotten, finding soil in our hearts.
And the roots grew.
From the earth to our souls, one Mother Tree to unite us all.
And when we rise Her branches hold us,
And when we tire Her trunk shelters us,
And when we die Her roots will carry us home.
Praise the trees.
Ring the bell again.
You may notice that I said the Mother Tree Prayer as part of the rite. I said I wanted to include it in my practices, and it feels very right for it to be part of it all.
During the meditation part I sat and listened to a couple of songs that I associate with Them, specifically the Morrigan and Manannan. I didn’t feel called to listen to a song for Brighid. I sat and thought about them, about my love for them, and wondered if I was on the right track. I felt lightheaded and full of fire; it was clear to me I am on the right track, and they are pleased.
In recent times they’ve gotten quieter in talking to me. I don’t know if it’s that they are speaking softer now, or if I can’t hear them as well because of my depression and my issues with feeling anything at all. But tonight I felt them clearly, even if not loudly. I was reaffirmed in my faith and my devotion, and that I am not just making it all up.
Now I am sitting and drinking some coffee to offset the effects of the mead, which had quite a kick (it was a wedding present to myself and Mr. Morag from a friend of ours who keeps bees). I am also eating more zucchini loaf, as much to ground as because it really is delicious. Dear gods. I made a good choice with this bread as my first one. (Recipe here!)
~
If you feel called to work with the Three as I have been, and if you find my writings and thoughts on them resonant to your own feelings and practice, you are free to take this rite and alter it to your needs and local climate. I realize that’s probably not very useful for this year if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, as Loafmass is kind of over (but belated ritual is better than no ritual at all!), so I’ll try to be better at getting my stuff up for Autumnal Equinox closer to the actual day.
Happy Loafmass. May your harvests be rich, your berries ripe and succulent, and your life blessed with abundance.
So some of you may remember that last year I talked a bit about opening up a witchcraft shop, and then everything imploded and I decided to just keep quiet until things were actually ready to go.
Well, I started work on that again recently, and right after I came across an opportunity to vend at Vancouver Pagan Pride Day with little risk — they are opening up spaces for vendors who don’t have a lot of stock on a shared table, for $5 CAD + 10% of profits. (There is plenty of space left so if this is something you’d like to do and you’re in the GVRD, please register!)
I’ve registered, and Everyday Magic will have a spot on this vendor table on September 10th at VPPD in Trout Lake park. I will be vending my pagan fiction (written under my fiction name, Katje van Loon) as well as a few prototype witchcraft products — some magical powders that I’m in the process of putting together, and heavy duty black salt!
I’m pretty excited about this. I’m using this event to gauge local interest in my witchery, as I’d like to start local at events and then expand to online sales. (I was going to start with online sales, but the current Canada Post strike-wibblyness makes that a not viable option right now.)
Do you watch the show Killjoys? Well, you should. It’s amazing. Seriously one of the best SF shows on right now.
Also, religiously relevant to me. It’s become my new BSG.
In Killjoys there’s a religious order called the Scarbacks. (Oh, yeah, don’t watch if you can’t handle self-mutilation like suspension on hooks or cutting — it’s a religious activity for the Scarbacks. Hence the name.) The stuff that’s written for them is beautiful, in my very not humble opinion. In particular, at one point a character recites the Mother Tree Prayer (which is what I call it; on the Wiki it’s referred to as the Blood Blessing, but other things have been said during blood blessings on the show, so. Warning: the Wiki contains images from the show).
The prayer moved me when I first heard it, and very soon I wanted to integrate it into my own practice. However, the prayer in original form is very specific to the show — it mentions Qresh, and a world with two moons. I wanted it to be applicable to Earth, in the here and now.
So, here is my small rewrite of the prayer. I don’t own the original, obviously, but I’m starting to use this revision in my Sacred Triad practices, and I wanted to share it here with you.
(And if you haven’t seen Killjoys, you really should. Just saying.)
And the roots grew.
And the seeds travelled from a home we’ve forgotten, finding soil in our hearts.
And the roots grew.
From the earth to our souls, one Mother Tree to unite us all.
And when we rise Her branches hold us,
And when we tire Her trunk shelters us,
And when we die Her roots will carry us home.
Praise the trees.
There are two main components to the Deipnon as laid out in that post — a mundane half and a ritual half, though I don’t think there’s a strong divide between them. The mundane part is the cleaning of the house, the ending of things, the finishing up — the ritual purification of one’s mundane life; the ritual part is the ritual itself, the offerings, the leaving of said offerings at the crossroads. The two are interconnected, of course, but no matter how much intention I put into my cleaning to make it holy, doing it as an offering to any god, it’s still…well, it’s cleaning. I’m still sweaty and gross by the end and everything hurts and I wanna die. (#DisabledPaganLife) So I tend to separate the two in my mind.
Anyway. I ended up not being able to really do anything on the 3rd, as we went to visit the in-laws on that day. So I decided to move it to the 4th — clean during the day and do a ritual at night.
I managed some cleaning, but not enough — mainly, I didn’t manage to clean out the floor in front of my altars and shrines, which has been storing a bunch of stuff for a while. And I was too brain-dead to write any sort of ritual, or do anything.
And then there’s the problem of my really not being able to leave any offerings at any nearby crossroads. Not on a regular basis, which the Deipnon is. (I cannot have neighbours or landlords seeing this happen on a regular basis; while going out at night lessens the chances of this, it does not eliminate them. There’s also the problem of left food offerings attracting wildlife to the suburbs; not sure I want the death of a hungry bear on my conscience. Or any possible wildlife attacks.) I will be trying to find an alternative.
So it was half a Deipnon, and I need to figure something out for next month. I might just do half of it again, and instead of a full ritual light a candle and say a prayer (the floor is cleaner now; I have been busy today). I need to teach myself to slowly build up to these things; every time I try to dive in feet first I either fully do it once and never again, or just…never do it.
Baby steps.
I think Hekate appreciates the effort, anyway.
-Morag
PS: This is just a funny aside. I pronounce “Hekate” “heck-ah-tay”, which is probably wrong, but it’s the way I’ve always done and She hasn’t yelled at me for it. When I was talking to my husband about the Deipnon and my plans for it, he started laughing. “I’m sorry,” he said, “It’s just that every time you say “Hekate” I hear “HECK” and think about those snake memes. GOSH HECKING DARN IT.”
So now I cannot disassociate the snek memes with Hekate and I figured I’d share this with you all. “IT IS DEIPNON. WILL DO A PREPARE.”
I’ve been trying to reclaim it in Manannan’s name, as He is my Father now. Since I cut my bio-sire out of my life and accepted Manannan’s offer to adopt me, I have been looking for ways to heal the deep wounds left by having a narcissistic sociopathic abuser for a bio-sire. It’s doubly fitting to make Father’s Day for Manannan, as it is so near the Summer Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere), and that is also His holiday.
It’s still hard for me. I’m not quite at the point where it’s been fully reclaimed.
For weeks now I’ve done the Sunday shopping with my husband, and had to force myself to keep walking down the aisle with greeting cards, not allowing myself to linger in melancholy. Colorful cardstock with words like “Dad, you’re the best” on them leap out at me and remind me — not only of all the shitty stuff from my bio-sire, but all the good stuff too. And the good stuff — the grooming — makes me feel like a bad child, like I should disrespect the boundaries I worked so hard to put up and let him back in my life. Because “it’s hard on him”, and he taught me well that his needs are more important than mine. Mine, in fact, should be non-existent.
Mr. Morag has given me many hugs while we shop, his shirts soaking up the small tears that escape before I gain composure. It sucks to cry in the grocery store. I do not recommend.
So this year I didn’t do anything for Solstice, except write a poem for my Father (which I only managed to pen yesterday). I wanted to do an actual ritual — something to celebrate the day. But the shadow of Father’s Day was too dark, and I could not focus properly.
Someday I hope that I’m able to put a Father’s Day card — whether store-bought or homemade — on my shrine to Manannan. I hope I am able to celebrate the day with Him, to honor Him as He deserves. I hope the day is a day of joy, and not something that makes Solstice too hard for me to face.
Healing is a slow process. I know there is more I should be doing to be more proactive in it, but even if I were — it would be slow. My bio-sire was in my life wreaking havoc for 26 years, and since I’ve cut him out he’s continued to stalk me and goad my half-sister into fighting his battles for him. I cannot expect healing to happen in just 4 years, especially when he’s not even 100% gone.
But I keep walking forward, one foot in front of the other. Someday I will heal enough. Someday it will not be so hard. Someday I will get through this time of year without feeling like there are daggers in my chest.
I spent a good portion of this morning crying before I even had a chance to shower or grab coffee. After showering I crawled back into bed and cried on the arm of my husband, who hugged me and listened to me rage. Whatever I had hoped to do today evaporated in a mist of sorrow. I distracted myself a few times, successfully, by doing housework or playing stupid video games. But inevitably, I was drawn back to the news cycle on Facebook and Twitter, retweeting endlessly and sharing whatever I could, wanting to feel something other than a depthless fear, anguish, and ineffectualness.
I decided partway through the day that I’d do a ritual tonight, to the Three, to Brighid, the Morrigan, and Manannan Mac Lir — to my queer Sacred Triad. I didn’t know what I was going to do until right before I did it, when I loaded the names of the dead onto my cell phone and stood before my shrine with a can of apple cider. I lit Their three candles and invoked Them; I offered my cider to Them to sustain Them and to connect us, and then I drank some myself. I offered up my tears and my grief and my rage, and then I prayed: for healing for all of us, queer brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings, and especially for the families and loved ones of the victims.
I prayed for strength and courage that we might continue fighting, that we might never let the fear beat us back into obscurity. I prayed that those who were murdered find peace in the afterlife, and know that they are loved, they are missed, and that we will continue on and we will not forget them. I prayed for the presence of my gods throughout this time, that They might guide us and help us with what needed to be done. And I read the names of the dead, and prayed for each of them to find peace, and prayed for peace for those yet to be identified. I said “Our grief is not a cry for war, and what cannot be said will be wept.”
And I sobbed. I cried through it all, unable to stop the breaking of my heart.
Again I offered up my rage and anger and sorrow, asking that the Three do something with it all because I did not know what to do anymore. And I offered more cider, topping up Their glasses, and finishing off the can myself. The candles still burn, and when they burn down, I will empty the glasses of cider in the drain, letting the spirits of decay have it.
Soon we will have dinner, and I will try to distract myself further with the mundanity of our lives. I will likely cry myself to sleep tonight, and tomorrow I will re-dedicate myself to never letting the flame go out.
I will continue to kindle the flames of understanding, awareness, love, acceptance, and ass-kicking compassion. I will keep speaking my truth, even when my voice shakes. I will stop living in fear.
I will do these things tomorrow.
Tonight is for the dead. Tonight is for tears and mourning. Tonight is time to grieve, and when we get through the darkness, the sun will shine bright on a new day, Brighid’s light and warmth and love giving us the strength and healing necessary to go on.
